growth of this quantity, in conjunction with the five millions sent hither. If the corn grown in England should fall short of an average quantity, there would be nothing in the circumstance that Poland habitually supplied us with five millions of quarters to induce Poland to grow an additional quantity for an unforeseen contingency, and provide a supply for our deficiency. It is only when foreign countries have a surplus of corn above the amount of the average demand in their markets, both for home consumption and exportation to foreign countries, and we experience a deficiency in the home produce, that any real advantage can be reaped from a free trade in corn. Should this trade be rendered perfectly free and unfettered, foreigners would only provide for the usual and average demand; and would not keep a stock on hand to provide for any extra demand, contingent upon an event of uncertain and merely possible occurrence-a deficiency of produce in other countries.

No political experiments can be more hazardous than those which endanger the continuance or check the progress of that system of husbandry which constitutes the very foundation and main stay of our national prosperity. Any legislative measure which, in its consequences, might throw land out of cultivation, or cause less capital to be laid out, less industry to be exerted, on that which is now in a state of tillage, would unavoidably affect our manufacturing and commercial prosperity. The occupier of land, relaxing his exertions, would have less surplus produce to dispose of less to expend in the employment of artisans and mechanics. The opinion, avowed by some of our cotemporaries, that the loss sustained by the occupier of land would prove a gain to the other classes of consumers, or that manufactures can thrive while agriculture decays, is one of the most unaccountable delusions that ever succeeded in imposing upon any considerable portion of the inhabitants of this country. By the decay of agriculture we do not, of course, mean merely a fall in the money-price of agricultural produce, but a diminution in the quantity derived from the land. An alteration in the value of the precious metals may produce a variation in the price of corn, as well as of other commodities, without affecting in the smallest degree the real prosperity of a nation; but if any circumstances should cause less corn to be grown, less beef and mutton to be fed within the limits of any country, the wealth of that country must be diminished, and its prosperity sustain a check; it will possess less food for the support of its inhabitants, who must in consequence look for their sustenance to foreign countries, or emigrate from their native land.

We

We are gravely assured by an author of considerable talents, who has written a volume upon the subject, that

'prohibitory duties on the importation of foreign corn would almost annihilate our manufactures and commerce; while a free trade in this important article would afford them all the encouragement of which they are susceptible.'-Torrens on the Corn Trade, p. 379.

Now it is known and admitted that the average quantity of corn imported into this country while the ports were open, never exceeded 600,000 quarters; and it has been computed that the annual consumption of grain in this country amounts to about 40,000,000 quarters. In the teeth of these data, Colonel Torrens contends, that, the exclusion of the 600,000 quarters of foreign corn, constituting about one-eightieth part of our annual consumption, will almost annihilate our manufactures and commerce; or, in other words, he maintains, that because we refuse to permit the foreign owners of 600,000 quarters of corn to bring their produce into this country, to be consumed in fabricating wrought commodities for their use, the owners of 39,500,000 quarters of corn grown in this country will cease to expend it in producing the various manufactured articles of which they stand in need.-Can Colonel Torrens seriously believe that the exclusion of foreign corn, bearing a proportion of ONE to SEVENTY-NINE, when compared with the quantity produced in this country, would almost annihilate our manufactures and commerce?'

Alterations in the internal economy of nations, involving extensive and complicated interests, are always attended with difficulty, and generally with danger: however beneficial they may in the end prove to the community at large, they can scarcely fail to inflict an injury, probably irreparable, upon the individuals more immediately affected by them. Such experiments should, therefore, be made with the greatest caution, and require a paramount and overwhelming necessity to justify them. Latterly, however, a species of spurious philosophy has gained ground among the members of a particular school of political economy, which justifies the promotion of the advantage of one class of the community at the expense of another; which justifies the crushing of an individual, or a body of individuals, provided some plausible theory can be advanced to show, that from his ruin an advantage will result to the rest of the community. They admit, for instance, that a free trade in corn would, at least for a time, prove injurious to the owners and occupiers of land in this country; that it would in all cases cause a considerable loss, and in many instances occasion an absolute sacrifice of the capital vested in the soil by the cultivator. But, on the principles by which they profess to be guided, they

contend

contend that such a measure is justifiable, because it will produce an advantage to the rest of the community. Granting, for a moment, that the view which they take of the subject should turn out to be correct; that the loss, which they are prepared to inflict upon the agriculturists, should prove a gain to the other classes of society,—we beg to ask them, is it just, is it moral, to deprive one man of his property, in order to confer it upon another? Shall it be said of any English statesmen as Cato said of some of his contemporaries—Liberalitas hoc demum appellatur aliena bona largiri?

We are not aware that the trading or manufacturing capitalist can put forward any equitable plea for the advantage which he claims to reap, at the expense of the agriculturist. The manufacturer and the agriculturist laid out their respective capitals-the one in cotton mills and machinery, the other in corn fields and cows-upon the faith of our present laws, and in the confidence that the system regulating the importation of foreign corn should be (in the main, at least) upheld upon what principle, therefore, does the manufacturer turn round upon the agriculturist to demand the abandonment of a system, which he contends will increase the profits of his own capital exactly in the proportion in which, by his own acknowledgment, it will diminish the returns accruing upon that of the farmer? A principle so unjust, so selfish, so rapacious will never, we feel confident, obtain the sanction of the legislature A body of senators, imbued with correct moral feelings, and anxious to do justice to all, will never consent to become the instruments of plundering one class of their constituents in order to enrich another. Within the last ten years, the classes connected with agriculture have sustained losses which, if stated, would appear incredible to those who are not intimately acquainted with the details of this subject. We have had pretty extensive opportunities of personal observation;-and we venture to express our unqualified conviction that, within the period above specified, onefourth of the occupiers of land in this country have been completely ruined, whilst the remainder have lost a moiety of their property.

A serious and continued depression in the value of his produce is much more ruinous to the farmer than a stagnation of trade can possibly prove to the manufacturer. However great may be the fall in the price of agricultural produce, it must be disposed of by the owner-the commodity which he holds is of a nature much too perishable to be long kept; and, although compelled to sell his crop at a ruinously low price, he must still continue to produce, at least until the manure, which he has at a great expense laid upon his land, has become exhausted. Were he to discharge his workmen, he must feed them in idleness-he must main

tain them out of parish funds, to which he is the principal, or perhaps the sole, contributor. Not so with the manufacturer: when the market becomes overstocked, and his goods fall in consequence below a remunerating price, he can generally devise, if not an absolute remedy for, at least some alleviation of, the evil under which he labours, without an entire loss of his capital. His goods will keep any length of time without injury; he can cease to produce, until the demand for his manufactures revives; and the workmen discharged by him must be supported, in a great degree, if not entirely, by the agricultural classes. The correctness of these observations is completely supported by the experience of the last ten years. During the depressed state of agriculture in 1821 and 1822, it is no doubt true that a considerable number of labourers were deprived of employment; but they were supported by funds raised principally out of the produce of land. Soon after the commencement of the crisis which recently oppressed the commercial world, the manufacturers of this country stopped their hands; they ceased to produce commodities which they could no longer dispose of to advantage; and the workmen discharged by them were turned loose upon the community, to be maintained either by subscription or by rates levied in the parishes to which they belonged. Thus, throughout the whole of the late eventful crisis, the manufacturer lost but little, if any, of his capital-he merely lost the profit which would have been realized upon this capital, in the usual course of business, during the interval in which his manufacturing operations were at a stand. During the depression of agriculture, on the other hand, the farmers not only did not realize the profits which they had been accustomed to make upon their capital, but most of them gradually lost the capital itself; and when the moment arrived that capital employed in agriculture began to yield the usual returns, few of those who had sustained the losses of the unfavourable crisis had the means left to take advantage of this improvement. Now, however, when the tide which had set so strongly against agriculture begins to turn in its favour, a loud outcry is instantly raised against those who are engaged in it: in the various publications with which the press, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily teems, they are held up to the public as extortioners, who grind the faces of the poor, who rob the workman of a great portion of his hire, and the manufacturer of the profit to which he is fairly entitled. This might lead a stranger to imagine that the average price of wheat in this country amounted to 80s. or 90s. per quarter; whereas the highest average for the last three years does not exceed 60s. per quarter: and we should therefore conceive that even a working mechanic would, upon reflection, admit the language systematically used

by

by demagogues and declaimers upon this subject, to be perfectly inapplicable to the present state of the corn-market. If the farmers were even for a time to realize profits somewhat higher than the average returns upon capital, it would only compensate them, and that in a very small degree, for the heavy losses which they have sustained; it would only make matters even, and tend to place agriculture on a level, in respect to profits, with other occupations; it would merely secure, upon the capital embarked in the cultivation of the soil, a fair return of profit in a given average of years. And this, we apprehend, is a circumstance of which no honest man would venture to complain.

We would moreover request those who so eagerly call for a free trade in corn, on the supposition that under that system manufactures would thrive at the expense of agriculture, to recollect that the prosperity of both the capitalists and the workmen employed in manufactures must, like quicksilver in a barometer, rise or fall with the prosperity of the agricultural classes. As the wages of labour are found, on an average of years, to rise and fall with the price of corn, so the returns and profits of manufacturers, shopkeepers, and other traders, fluctuate on a scale corresponding, almost mathematically, with the variations which take place in the marketprice of agricultural produce. Mr. Cayley states, that he was informed by a very intelligent correspondent acquainted with the party,

that a shopkeeper in a farming district, when wheat was selling at about 90s. per quarter, sold goods (cotton, cloth, groceries, &c.) to the amount of 6000l. per annum, and that his creditors were punctual in paying him his Christmas reckonings. That when wheat fell in price, in the years 1815, 1816, to little more than 60s. per quarter, he did not sell more than 4000l. worth, and that he was obliged to give credit to more than half his customers, instead of taking their money. That during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, he sold more than 5000l. worth of goods each year, the price of wheat being 94s., S3s., and 72s.; and his customers nearly rubbed off all their old scores. During the next year his sale amounted to about 4000l., and very little credit was given in his books; but the year 1821 brought his sales down to 4000/., and the two following years reduced them to less than 3000l. each year, and very little of it was paid when due; the price of wheat for those three years being 65s., 54s., and 43s. per quarter.'

corn.

6

'The action of one foot cannot correspond more exactly with another,' observes Mr. Cayley, than did this man's trade with the price of The losses and adversity of the retail, must extend themselves to the wholesale, trade; and if the wholesale merchant's custom fail him, the demand from the manufacturer is reduced in the same proportion.'-Cayley on Corn, &c., pp. 8, 9.

The great bugbear which frightens the English manufacturer,

is